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Debating the Canon

A Reader from Addison to Nafisi

  • Book
  • © 2005

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Editors:
  1. Lee Morrissey
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Table of contents (43 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-v
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: “The Canon Brawl: Arguments over the Canon”

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 1-13

  3. Joseph Addison (1672–1719) from The Tatler, No. 108 (Thursday, December 15, to Saturday, December 17, 1709)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 15-16

  4. David Hume (1711–1776) from “Of the Standard of Taste,” Essays (1757)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 17-20

  5. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) from “Preface to the Plays of William Shakespeare” (1765)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 21-22

  6. Red Jacket (c.1750–1830) “Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?” from a speech to the Boston Missionary Society (1828)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 23-23

  7. Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) from “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” Essays in Criticism (1865)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 25-27

  8. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” The Sacred Wood (1919)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 29-34

  9. F.R. Leavis (1895–1978) from Mass Civilization and Minority Culture (1933)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 35-35

  10. Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) “Reading and the Growth of the Mind,” How to Read a Book (1940)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 37-49

  11. Erich Auerbach (1892–1957) from “Odysseus’ Scar,” Mimesis (1946; trans. 1953)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 51-56

  12. Leo Strauss (1899–1973) from “Persecution and the Art of Writing,” Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 57-63

  13. Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) from “On National Culture,” Wretched of the Earth (1961)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 65-70

  14. Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) from “Commitment: The Politics of Autonomous Art,” New Left Review (1962)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 71-72

  15. Chinua Achebe (1930–) “Colonialist Criticism,” Hopes and Impediments (1974, 1988)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 73-85

  16. Elaine Showalter (1941–) from “The Female Tradition,” A Literature of Their Own (1977)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 87-91

  17. Annette Kolodny (1941–) from “A Map for Rereading: Or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts,” New Literary History (1980)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 93-101

  18. Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) from “The Field of Cultural Production, Or: The Economic World Reversed,” The Field of Cultural Production (1983)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 103-110

  19. William J. Bennett (1943–) from “To Reclaim a Legacy,” American Education (1985)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 111-116

  20. Elizabeth Meese (1943–) from “Sexual Politics and Critical Judgment,” in Gregory S. Jay and David L. Miller, Eds., After Strange Texts (1985)

    • Lee Morrissey
    Pages 117-122
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Keywords

About this book

Over the past two decades, the debate over the 'Great Books' has been one of the key public controversies concerning the cultural content of higher education. Debating the Canon provides a primary-source overview of these ongoing arguments. Many of these contributions to this debate have achieved 'canonical' status themselves; through the focus on the canon, the full spectrum of approaches to literary studies can be seen in the essays. Therefore, this collection places the recent debate within a larger context of literary criticism's development of a canon, going back to the eighteenth century.

Reviews

"It would be hard for me to overestimate my enthusiasm for the extremely timely and useful book that Morrissey has put together...He has picked the best of the best-known contributions, and also strayed someway afield to bring in pieces that will enrich debate...I honestly can't think of one important piece in the canon debates that belongs in Morrissey's table of contents that he hasn't already though of." - Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Past-President, Modernist Studies Association

About the authors

LEE MORRISSEY is Professor of English at Clemson University, USA.

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